In no particular order, leaving many gaps, on the Fourth of July I celebrate America, and these things about America:
- The Apollo Project that put humans on the Moon
Apollo 11: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin beside the solar wind experiment. NASA photo
- Interstate Highway System
- Yellowstone National Park
- Edward Abbey
- Rainbow Bridge National Monument
- The New York Public Library
- Jello
- Baltimore, home of the Orioles, and playing field for Johnny Unitas
- Death Valley, the lowest point in North America, and generally the hottest.
- Denali, the highest point in North America, so high it makes its own weather
- New Orleans Jazz
- Grant Wood’s paintings
- Mark Twain
- Dred Scott
- Thurgood Marshall, and Brown v. Topeka Board of Education
- U.S. Highway 101, especially where you can see the Pacific Ocean
- Route 66
- Hot dogs
- Ketchup, or catsup if you prefer
- Salsa in a bottle
- Miles Davis
- Aldo Leopold
- French fries, with ketchup, without ketchup, with mayonnaise, with Big H Sauce
- Grand Canyon National Park
- The Mississippi River
- “Ol’ Man River”
- Meredith Willson, and “The Music Man!”
- Emily Dickinson
- Falling Water
- Pikes Peak
- Bluegrass music
- Philly Cheese Steaks
- Phyllis Wheatley
- Steinway Pianos
- Chicken Fried Steak
- Amish barn raisings
- James Levine
- Cheeseburgers
- Sojourner Truth
- Kansas City Jazz
- Onion Rings
- Peanut Butter
- Leo Fender and the electric guitar
- Les Paul and tape loops
- Gibson Guitars
- Chicago Jazz
- Martin Guitars
- Mississippi Delta Blues
- Chicago Electric Blues
- Woody Guthrie
- John Philip Sousa
- Phillip Glass
- Commander Lloyd Bucher and the U.S.S. Pueblo
- Frank Lloyd Wright, and Prairie Architecture
- Mies van der Rohe
- Beale Street in Memphis
- Richard Feynman, and his memoirs
- Broadway in New York
- Bonfires along the Mississippi near Baton Rouge
- Indianapolis 500
- Daytona Speedway
- Fenway Park
- Crabcakes from the Chesapeake
- Golden Gate; and the Golden Gate Bridge
- Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
- Monticello, Virginia
- Cape Hatteras and the lighthouse
- Mount Timpanogos in Utah
- Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia
- Great Houses of Newport, Rhode Island
- Bluebirds at the Yorktown Battlefield Monument
- Colorado River through Grand Canyon
- Bluebell Ice Cream
- Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream
- Mt. Rushmore National Monument
- Lake of the Woods
- Pete Seeger
- Walt Whitman
- Robert Service’s poems
- Girls Scouts of America
- Little League Baseball
- Frederick Douglass
- College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska
- Henry David Thoreau
- Niagara Falls
- Adirondack Park, New York
- Sitting on the porch at Mount Vernon, Virginia, watching bald eagles cross the Potomac River
- Condors soaring near Big Sur, California
- Irving Berlin, and “God Bless America”
- Frank Sinatra
- Jonathan Winters
- Hollywood Movies
- Airplane graveyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Arizona
- Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon, near Page, Arizona
- The Shiprock, New Mexico
- Chrysler Building, and the Empire State Building
- Blue Ridge Parkway
- Susan B. Anthony
- Everett Dirksen
- Cade’s Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
- Red touring “buses” in Glacier National Park
- Fog rolling over the Marin Headlands, Marin County, California
- The Beach Boys
- Skiing and snowboarding, at Solitude, Alta, Hunter Mountain, Park City, Sundance
- The Alpine Loops — both of them, Utah and Colorado
- The Virginian Hotel and Cafe, Medicine Bow, Wyoming
- American Bison, in Yellowstone, at Antelope Island, in the Henry Mountains, in the LBJ Grasslands
- Osprey at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Maryland
- Painted Buntings at Colorado Bend State Park, Texas
- Dissident tradition that gives us Edward Snowden
- King of France Tavern, and Treaty of Paris Restaurant, Annapolis, Maryland
- The Triple Crown: Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes
- Jackie Robinson
- Sandy Koufax
- Jerry West
- Secretariat
- Lewis and Clark
- Sacagawea
- U.S. Women’s Soccer Team
- Eugene Debs
- AAA Baseball, and the other minor leagues
- Texas Barbecue
- Louis Armstrong
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Duke Ellington
- Ballet West
- Second City
- The Groundlings
- Harriet Tubman
- Owl Burgers at the Owl Cafe in Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Seattle Opera
- Appalachian Trail
- Linda Rondstadt; Linda singing canciones
- Dolly Parton, Emmy Lou Harris, and Linda Rondstandt singing tight three-part harmonies
- Edward Hopper
“Morning Sun,” Edward Hopper, 1952
- The Marfa Lights
- Sloop Clearwater, and the Hudson River
- Rafting on the Snake River out of Jackson Hole, Wyoming
- Acadia National Park
- The Moffatt Tunnel, and the passenger trains that go through it (R.I.P. old Prospector and California Zephyr; long live the new Prospector and Zephyr)
- Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel
- Brooklyn Bridge
- Hires Drive-in and the Big H Burger, 4th South in Salt Lake City
- Old North Church, Boston
- Any country road in Vermont or New Hampshire, when the autumn leaves are turning
- Virgin River Narrows, Zion Canyon National Park
- Platte River when the big birds are migrating
- The oldest European building in America, the church at Fulton, Missouri
- Harley-Davidson plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — across the street from the Miller Brewery
- Wisconsin bratwursts
- Harry Houdini
- Harriett Beecher Stowe
- Grits served four ways at a diner in Charleston, South Carolina
- Salmon smoked by Native Americans in Puget Sound
- Varsity Drive In, in Atlanta
- Raspberry milkshakes at Bear Lake, Utah
- Maple syrup from Vermont
- Sam Weller’s Zion Book Store, Salt Lake City
- Old Angler’s Inn, on the C&O Canal
- Central Park, New York City
- Seabiscuit
- Babe Ruth
- Lou Gehrig
- Renée Fleming
- Willie Nelson
- Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and their friendship
- Boeing 707, and the aircraft plants that make them
- Howard Zinn
- Solid state electronics, and the Chip that Jack Kilby Built
- Tennessee Valley Authority
- Noam Chomsky
- A. Phillip Randolph
- Ford, Chrysler and General Motors
- Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones)
- Gold dome of the Colorado Capitol; the copper domes of the Arizona and Utah Capitols
- Things named after John Muir. many in places you would not expect, as well as quite a number of elementary schools
- Boy Scouts of America
- The United States Marine Corps
- Side Street Cafe, Honolulu
- Buzz Aldrin
- John Glenn
- Greensborough Four
- Freedom Riders
- Freedom Summer
- GI Bill
- Dennis Banks
- Gloria Steinem
- Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Farley Mowat and all the other Canadians who come south of the border to make us think
- Bob Marshall Wilderness Area
- Twin Peaks Wilderness Area
- Bonneville Salt Flats
- Damon Runyon, and “Guys and Dolls”
- Utah Phillips
- Et cetera
- Et cetera
Okay, Dear Reader: What have I left off the list?
(Maybe we should hold on to this list for Thanksgiving. We have a lot to be grateful for, and a lot of people to give thanks to.)
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Oh, I think using Travels with Charley as an organizing feature to teach geography is brilliant. I’d love to see a lesson plan of website like that.
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Good point, great list, Debra. Thanks!
Yes, I knew the list was light on women and people of color. Need to add those two chiefs celebrated in the 16 stained glass windows in the Colorado Capitol Building, Chief Ouray (?) and ________(?).
You’ve read Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley? I’d like to do a geography class sometime with that as the text.
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I see where you are going with this but what I think what makes America great is not its commercialism but its history of ideas. What is missing from your list are important voices of dissent: John Steinbeck, Henry David Thoreau, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Edward Snowden, Mary Harris Jones, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Eugene Debs, Dred Scott, A. Phillip Randolph, Greensboro 4, Freedom Riders, Dennis Banks, Gloria Steinhem, all the suffragettes etc. Really too many to list. I hope you can see this as a (hopefully gentle) reminder that people from the working class, women and people of colour offer more than entertainment which your list seems to skew toward.
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Muir was a great character — Jim Lackey used to live a short distance from Muir’s home in Contra Costa County. The list is light on conservationists and land lovers.
I thought Boy Scouts, but probably had another thought before I typed it out.
There’s that guy at the PBS station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who does all the great programs on roller coasters of America, or best sandwhich shops, or great places to have breakfast. He did the one on buildings that don’t look like buildings — the Long Island Duck, the big shoe, etc. Maybe I could find a pirate version of his shows and just stream them on this list. (Never been to Honolulu; but doesn’t every great working town have a place like that? Is Bill and Nada’s still alive in Salt Lake City, after Kay and Red’s faded away?)
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Things named after John Muir. many in places you would not expect, as well as quite a number of elementary schools.
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Boy Scouts of America
The United States Marine Corps
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Oh you must add the “Side Street Cafe” in Honolulu. A working man’s place where the cooks & chefs would go after feeding the tourists. They would welcome all to some friendly family style dining, masquerading as a bar. If you listen close on the new Hawaii 5 O there will be a few references to it. It is so Hawaiian yet so very much America. Happy Independance Day!
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